


An Accident, Yes, But One Of Some Magnitude

by meependa (Hawkbringer)



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Abrupt Ending, Emotions, Kirk's mind is too dynamic: plz nerf, M/M, Out of Character, Past Tense, Quote: Emotional transference is an effect of the mind meld, Recreational Mind Melds, Submissive James T. Kirk, Telepathic Bond, Untapped Mental Abilities, Vulcan Mind Melds, Vulnerable James T. Kirk, possibly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 03:09:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18295622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/meependa
Summary: "Congratulations, James Tiberius Kirk. You are the first human to ever accidentally form a mental bond with a Vulcan." Spock was trying to warn Jim that melding for recreation might have some consequences... Turns out they passed THAT milestone a while ago.





	An Accident, Yes, But One Of Some Magnitude

**Author's Note:**

> Kirk's mental voice is kind of all over the place, please forgive. I saw JJA's 2009 movie before watching TOS so my Kirk-voice sometimes stumbles into AOS-Kirk's hyperactive immaturity.
> 
> /Between slashes indicates character's thoughts./ 
> 
> Before reading, mind the tags. Written during Christmas break in 2012.

Concluding another 'recreational' meld in Spock's quarters found the reserved Vulcan Starfleet officer reluctantly trailing his hands down his captain's face, savoring the opportunity to watch his ecstasy-slackened face reassemble itself into the familiar, powerful, command image he always projected in public. Only Spock got to see this vulnerable version of him... With a start, Spock realized he wanted to be the _only_ one so privileged.

He turned away from his captain as Kirk's eyes fluttered open, unable to bear the open, honest, stupidly grateful expression on his face. 

"Spock?" Kirk asked softly, angling one shoulder in so that Spock could sense his body's radiant heat, but not touching. He wondered with a stab of sorrow if his face had betrayed too much.

"Yes, Captain?" came the proper Vulcan officer's response.

"Oh, Spock, it... I'm sorry. Please don't turn away. Will you look at me? Will you just..." Kirk's soft pleading petered out as Spock spun slowly on his heel, staring unabashedly at his apologetic, submissive captain.

"For what... are you apologizing?" he asked softly, incredulously.

"I... on my face. You saw something," he added, watching Spock's brow twist with that adorable confusion he so rarely got to see. "Not, not food remnants," he laughed, realizing how Spock must have taken that, "I mean, emotion. I, I showed too much, didn't I? On my face?"

Spock's lips trembled and he wrenched his eyes from his captain's, trying very hard not to smile. The only sound that he let escape his chest was a brief but well-supported " _Huhh!_ " of swiftly cut-off laughter. "Any emotion you show on your face, Captain, is reflected with ten times that strength in the meld," Spock explained gently. "You can hide nothing from me."

"Oh, yes I can," Kirk countered with a smug glint in his eye. Spock tilted his head and opened his mouth. Kirk answered his question before Spock had a chance to voice it aloud. "I've hidden from you just how much I love these melds of ours." His eyes dropped to the floor, displaying his slightly-pinkened cheeks and wheat-blond hair for Spock at an angle, the Vulcan admitted to, that was quite aesthetically appealing. "You don't know how much I..." /want to beg you for it,/ he thought about saying out loud, but didn't. "How much I think about them. All the time. I think you've gotten me addicted, mister!" 

It was meant as a jest, but Spock turned his head away, steeling himself. Now was the best time to mention it.

"I find myself... unwilling to discontinue our mental assignations solely due to the fact that you enjoy them, Captain," Spock informed him gently. "But there are... possible consequences that may concern you, that I have failed to inform you of, as of yet."

Kirk jerked his head up. "Consequences? Negative consequences? After-effects?" 

Spock nodded once, regally. "Depending on one's viewpoint, all those terms could apply."

"So they're not all necessarily harmful... just... annoying?" Kirk hazarded to guess.

"Annoying, no. Bothersome, unwanted, possibly dangerous. There are risks to continuing to engage in this behavior, Captain," Spock lectured as gently as he could while still maintaining decorum. He didn't look Kirk in the eyes.

"You'll... have to enumerate these risks for me, Mr. Spock. I am... unaware of them at this time." Kirk's eyebrows narrowed as he searched his Vulcan friend's face. The risks must not be in immanent danger of manifesting, or Spock would have mentioned them far before now. /So what could they be...?/

"There..." Spock exhaled as he said the word. Not sighed. Vulcans didn't sigh. "There are several possible consequences that could result from continued contact with the deeper levels of your unconscious mind... as we have just been doing, Captain." Spock did not resist the temptation to flick his eyes to Kirk for one glimpse of that pink-flushed face. Then he rebuked himself for it. 

"Like any form of.... emotional communication between humanoids, continual frequent melds, in or outside of dangerous situations, will result in a certain amount of... emotional investment." Kirk looked up at Spock in surprise. Did he really think they didn't already share...?

"Mental attunement," Spock was saying, "will- _could,_ no doubt, develop within the next several months, and if...if years pass, perhaps a nascent link--"

"And you think we don't share that already??" Kirk burst out, interrupting his First Officer quite rudely, aware he was doing it and actively brushing off his instinct to cringe. "I can _feel_ you, Spock, right here--" Kirk tapped the back of his head for emphasis, "And I can... I _know_ things, that you know. Not, everything, of course, but I know _just how_ you're going to answer a question, before you've even opened your mouth! You're telling me that's not mental attunement?"

Spock's dark-haired head lifted slowly, and Kirk suppressed an instinctive flash of fear. "What you speak of... is not possible. Not with the amount of contact _we_ have engaged in. Several months from now, I could understand, but... that level of..."

"I'm not lying, Spock. I'm not... creatively exaggerating, either," Kirk insisted with a slight petulant whine to his voice. Suddenly, he didn't want to keep this link, or whatever it was, a secret any longer. He hadn't even been aware that it had _been_ one! 

"Here," he offered, fumbling for Spock's hand. The Vulcan first officer jerked it away, instinctively, and Kirk's hand landed on his sleeve. Kirk slid it slowly down to the cuff, seductively, reassuringly, and took Spock's hand in his own, not daring to miss the Vulcan's slight hitch of breath. "Here," he repeated with a tug on Spock's hand, "I want you to see. Search for it, what you mean to me. I don't think I'd be any good at broadcasting it right." 

Still Spock hesitated. With eyes narrowed, he challenged Kirk to a battle of wills. "If you _can_ feel an echo of my mental presence when we are not telepathically in contact, you should in fact be able to 'broadcast' to me precisely of what you speak. I urge you to try that, Captain. Now." 

Kirk's eyes widened and flicked side-to-side for a second. A scared animal looked out of them as they came to rest desperately on Spock again. 

"No preparation," Spock explained. "No coaching. Do as you can, in this moment, to the best of your mental ability. I will lower my shields, if you believe your abilities so feeble."

"I can _tell_ you they're feeble, mister, I don't have to _believe _it!" Kirk snapped. Relenting immediately, his face relaxed and he closed his eyes to better concentrate. He'd seen Spock do that in the past, and hoped it'd work for him. "Just, okay, I'll try."__

__"Good. I encourage you to 'shout' as loud as you can, Captain. I do not, of course, believe you are capable of it." Kirk popped open one eye to shoot him a 'not amused' glare - and to see Spock's eyes twinkle in reply. He knew exactly how Kirk responded to being told something was impossible, after all._ _

__He breathed deeply once, to center himself, as Spock concentrated on lowering his shields, a positive effort after the habit of leaving them so long in place._ _

__/I love you,/ Kirk thought clearly to himself. /No, no, can't send him that, he won't believe it. Or he'll freak. Okay, about the bond, about the bond.... Bond? How do I know it's called that?/ Kirk summoned the image of their link in his mind - it sparkled like Spock's eyes at their most determined, it shimmered with his hidden warmth, it glowed with the steady determination that Kirk had leaned on so heavily for all of his captaincy aboard the Enterprise. But it did not have a shape._ _

__This bothered Kirk for some reason, and he cycled through symbolic shapes that would represent to Spock what this bond meant to him. /It's definitely a link... so.. like a chain?/ The second he imagined it, he discarded it. /No, no, chains are instruments of oppression. This link is the freedom to fly. A pair of wings? No... it's not pure freedom, either. Like the lane-bumpers in an old-fashioned bowling alley! But he'd just laugh at that..../_ _

__Spock's imagined raised eyebrow at that idea sent Kirk's soul into peals of ringing laughter and tenderness, and some echo of these thoughts bled past Spock's lowered barriers and he stiffened._ _

__/Hmm... it anchors, yet it sets me free. Anchors... Ooh! Ooh, an anchor! Yes, that fits!/ Kirk was pleased to see one end of the bond visually coalesced into a heavy weight, shaped as he had imagined it, like a maritime ship anchor. He watched with awe as the rest of the image fell into place - as the bond condensed and brightened and weaved itself into strands, passing over and under each other, forming a strong length of rope... which stretched up, up, out of sight in his mind's eye, yet remained firmly rooted to the anchor that was Spock in his mind._ _

__/This is it!/ Kirk exclaimed gleefully in his head. He imagined transplanting the anchor and rope into Spock's brain, the topography of which he had pretty well mapped out by this point. / _This is what you are to me!_ / Kirk projected with his mind, so ridiculously loudly that any psi-positive crewmember walking past their door would have heard it, as though Kirk had been shouting through a megaphone. _ _

__/I _see_ it, t'hy'la! Would you please lower the volume of your thought patterns?/_ _

__/Oh! Sorry,/ Kirk thought sheepishly. Then he snapped his eyes open. "You heard me," he rather bluntly accused._ _

__Spock inclined his head, the better to hide his own verdant blush. "I cannot deny the truth. James Tiberius Kirk, you have inadvertently bonded with a Vulcan. This is a feat no human has ever accomplished. Well done." He then turned on his heel and attempted to stalk out of the room._ _

__Kirk rushed forward and bodily blocked his way to the door. Spock let him, but he refused to open his eyes. To his utter surprise, Kirk chuckled. "Negative consequences, huh? Being able to talk to you, completely in my _mind?_ I'd say that's a pretty useful trick, Spock. And it's not... it's not hurting you, is it?" His tone shifted from cocky to concern as Kirk immediately started to worry for the mental safety of his friend. Unpleasant memories of all the times some alien had telepathically hurt Spock were resurfacing and Kirk shifted one shoulder into Spock's personal space, close enough to touch if Spock wanted him to. _ _

__Kirk's tightened shoulders sagged with relief as Spock shook his head morosely. "It will hurt me only if you are hurt, t'hy-Captain. It will, as you say, be useful for that." A twinge of worry shot through the human._ _

__"It's.... I shouldn't have called it useful, Spock, I'm sorry. It's bigger than that, isn't it?" He searched Spock's face for a sign that he was way off the mark - or dead on. "A Vulcan-human bond? That... seems like it's a pretty big deal." He waited but Spock said nothing. He didn't move to escape, either, and Kirk took that as his cue to keep talking._ _

__"I..." he sighed. "I wanna know what it can do, Spock. I wanna, take this thing for a trial run, if possible. Let's, let's see if it hurts us more than it helps, and if it helps, we leave it. Sound good?"_ _

__Kirk's frame suddenly spasmed in shock as lightning-fast Vulcan hands wrapped around his biceps and compressed the muscles to the bone, hard enough to bruise. "There is more to a bond than simply this, Kirk, Tiberius, James!" Spock's voice came out hoarse and rasping. Kirk's whole body pounded with fear-arousal as he realized he was listening to the voice of an untamed Vulcan warrior, the base state for all of Surak's people. /The logic has to be TAUGHT to them,/ Kirk marveled, even as his lower arms tingled with lost blood. /This is how they really are./_ _

__"Yes," Spock hissed forcefully in answer. "We do this to prevent _accidents_ like _this_ one!" Unable to ignore Kirk's mounting physical discomfort, as it echoed in his own limbs, Spock forced himself to slacken his grip and remove his hands from his t'hy'la - no easy task for an unbonded Vulcan with an eager potential mate clinging to him._ _

__"Okay," Kirk agreed, recovering remarkably quickly for someone who nearly got his humerus bones shattered by a pissed-off Vulcan. "Yes, it was an accident. It's also, apparently, one of some.... magnitude."_ _

__Spock, who was breathing slowly, harshly, through his nose, simply sent Kirk the _idea_ of agreement through their newly-blown-open link._ _

__"Okay," he repeated, taking in stride the shifting languages this conversation was being conducted in. "If that's the case, then... we really need to think about this, then. Before we make any decision. _You_ need to explain to _me_ just what is going on, here! And why I should be thinking of this bond as something bigger than a mere... _convienence._ " Kirk purposefully used such a goading word to prod a reaction out of Spock. He got one._ _

__Spock didn't move, but his face crinkled in an expression of more intense pain than Kirk had never seen in his entire life. Kirk was just about to ask what was wrong when the images hit him, and with all the force of a hurricane, he was towed under._ _

__Submerged in his best friend's brain for the second time in two hours, a silent and impotent observer as Spock remembered, replayed, relived, several key events in the Enterprise's history - in their shared history, Kirk realized. The events Kirk watched were ones he remembered for himself, but they were overlaid with a fourth dimension of Spock-commentary - emotions that ran the gamut from heart-stopping terror and green-tinged rage, to tear-spilling sadness and heart-bursting joy. Every one was felt as powerfully as if the Vulcan was capable of doing nothing else - more powerfully than Kirk had felt any emotions since his first heavy, hormone-fueled romance at the age of 14._ _

__Kirk's heart ached from racing in tandem, in sympathy with Spock's. As the last image, of Spock smiling at Jim, holding him in his arms for that too-brief moment in Sickbay after the kal-i-fee, as the last image faded, Kirk's vision clearing to once again take in the spare quarters of his first officer's room, he found himself panting, nearly unable to stand on his own feet._ _

__The magnitude of those remembered emotions seemed to affect Spock only as strongly as a brief moment of bitter nostalgia would Kirk, and the Vulcan watched in surprise as Kirk struggled to catch his breath. Forgetting, for a moment, the lesson he'd wanted Kirk to learn (specifically, how much Kirk already meant to him, and how much worse it was all going to get if they kept up this melding-for-fun business), Spock gripped his captain's elbow and steered him toward the nearest chair._ _

__Kirk sank gratefully into it, grasping Spock's hand as the Vulcan made to pull away, drawing strength from the cool-headed placidity with which Spock regarded those painfully emotional memories. If that's what daily life was like without Vulcan controls, no wonder they had instituted Surak's philosophy as an almost planet-wide religion! And no wonder the Romulans were such dangerous, tenacious foes!_ _

__"Captain? Are you quite all right?"_ _

__"No, Mr. Spock," Kirk gasped, his mouth hanging open, "I'm not.... quite all right... You can see that.... with your two eyes!" Kirk's panting continued for some minutes as Spock sat down apologetically beside Kirk, and waited with a raised eyebrow, for him to recover._ _


End file.
